Les deux identite´s de la France

Regionalism is an important element in the representation of French identity. Often considered as a right-wing ideology, it appeared as a left-wing movement in the 1960s, and references to regionalism are to be found in much French political discourse today. This article highlights the place of the regionalist element in French identity by advancing the hypothesis that for more than a century there has been a dual French identity. The Third Republic asserted that France was 'one and indivisible', but also that the country was richly diverse. The exaltation of diversity permitted the reaffirmation of French superiority over other nations. In order to develop a mass education grounded on patriotic feeling, those responsible for education declared that this had to be based on children's spontaneous affection for their 'petite patrie'. The regional identities celebrated in republican France are not at odds with national identity. The process of constructing national identities in Europe led to the creation of a 'check-list' forming the basis of all national identities. Regional identities were constructed on the basis of a dual relationship between the local and the national: the model of the national as a perfect mosaic of diversity, or the model of the 'mise en abyme', that is, the local representing the national in miniature.     

Calixthe Beyala: Black face(s) on French TV

As president and spokeswoman of the French black rights movement, Collectif ÉgalitÉ, Cameroonian-born novelist Calixthe Beyala is committed to pushing for an improvement in the representation of black people on television in France. This article discusses the ways in which the Collectif has attempted to draw the French public's attention to the lack of 'visible minorities' on French TV. It takes as a test case the controversial figure of Beyala herself who has become something of a minor TV celebrity in her own right. What emerges as an apparent contradiction between Beyala's own media representation and the Collectif's campaign will serve to illustrate the ambivalent positioning of black citizens in contemporary France.     

Cultural democratisation and popular music

The article examines ways in which the long-standing ambition to democratise culture in France can be applied to popular music, and to French pop particularly. Theoretically, pop should not need to be democratised at all since it is 'popular' by definition. But the rhetoric of 'popular culture' in France has traditionally been more to do with aspiration than reality. The analysis considers how French sociology and cultural policy have 'democratised' pop in one sense, by helping it find acceptance as a 'legitimate' practice, but have in the process constructed it as a social phenomenon, bypassing the much more complex issue of its aesthetic worth.     

L'écologisme français entre présent évanescent et avenir incertain

This article reviews the factors determining whether the ecology movement in France has been a success or a failure. Broadly speaking the French ecology move ment - l'écologisme français - came into existence to fulfil a dual ambition. First, through its incursion into the political arena - an incursion initially thought of as temporary - its purpose was to force other political parties and public bodies to pay greater attention to environmental issues. Second, in the swirl of ideas following May 1968, its ambition was to become a 'politics of the future': among other things, it would strive to displace the other parties and undermine or redefine the traditional divide between the Left and Right. These and other concerns are analysed in order to assess what role 'ecologism' plays in France today. This article is based on the author's latest book, L'introuvable écologisme français (PUF, 2000).     

Marring the Memory: The 1967 Vimy Ridge Commemorations and Canada-France Relations

Commemorating Canada's legendary April 1917 battle of Vimy Ridge has normally proven an emotive event of national importance, symbolic of shared Canadian and French wartime trials and given mostly to remembrance of Canada's war dead. Since 1936, the ridge has been graced by the massive Canadian National Vimy Memorial, for decades the site of impressive and solemn annual ceremonies. But Canada's 1967 50th anniversary celebrations of the battle – a showpiece of the national centenary celebrations – became mired in controversy. French President General Charles de Gaulle was deeply offended that Canada had invited Prince Philip to the event without consulting Paris. It was a stunning diplomatic blunder, especially since Canada's relations with France already were tense as a result of de Gaulle's tacit support for the cause of Quebec independence. Consequently, an opportunity to commemorate a signal event in Canadian history devolved into a fractious bilateral debate and led to a shocking and much-deplored French boycott of the ceremonies. This article adds to the history of commemoration as foreign policy and argues that the Vimy incident had major consequences on France–Canada relations and played a role in France's growing encouragement of Quebec separatists.     

Memory,history and national identity in Vichy France

Vichy France mobilised memory-managers to explain that the Revolution was over, to promote a deeper understanding of the French past and to help find a place in a European 'New Order' invigorated by the Germanic peoples. They demonstrated that a time of elites, or of 'knights', had returned. New people of old stock would displace the rabble risen in the Jacobin Empire and renew France by re-rooting her in her authentic past and collective memories. As Pe´tain toured the revered places of France's memory, the Republican rites and rituals were displaced by older symbols and ceremonies. Jewish and Masonic over-representation under the Third Republic encouraged a serene consensus for their exclusion. Vichy's search for a people's rooted, communitarian identity and heritage mustered prodigious, selfless, energies. The French wanted to be who they 'really were' and so vigorously sought themselves in their traditions and their past, with pernicious results.     

Le gaullisme et la crise de l'Etat

The heritage of 1789 left French politicians and political analysts with the complex task of reconciling the two antithetical ideals of the Revolution: the desire to make the nation the sole political arbiter through its representatives with the need to maintain its unity. The history of France from 1789 to de Gaulle reflects France's fearfulness toward a strong executive as well as its fundamental mistrust in the people's capacity to maintain the cohesion of the nation and serve the general will. Here it is argued that de Gaulle overcame these contradictions by retaining French liberalism's emphasis on a dual executive, while the Bonapartist ideal of a strong executive could, erroneously, appear to be de Gaulle's deliberate choice. Finally it is argued that 'cohabitation', the debate surrounding the duration of the presidential mandate and the changing attitude toward France's relationship to the Vichy regime, reveal transformations proper to the French state in the late 20th century as much as a crisis of Gaullism and the loss of its basic meaning.     

The road to modern Jewish politics. Political tradition and political reconstruction in the Jewish community of Tsarist Russia

This article examines how Maoist theory and practice were imported to France during the 1960s. A syncretic phenomenon, as notions developed in the Chinese cultural context were adapted to the very different Gallic situation, French Maoism proved to be especially influential among students at the École normale supérieure at the rue d’Ulm in Paris, where the Marxist theoretician, Louis Althusser, was teaching. Maoist philosophy facilitated critiques of the Moscow-aligned French Communist Party and its student union; it enabled Althusser's rethinking of the Marxist tradition, and it ultimately provided ammunition for his students’ eventual break with his “theoreticism.” Maoism's fecund contribution to French intellectual culture in the 1960s, helping to lay the groundwork for the events of May 1968, derived principally from its dual theoretical and practical nature. This article highlights two specific Maoist tenants—the inevitably violent nature of revolution and the ersatz-empiricist method of the “investigation”—and suggests how, after 1968, French Maoism ultimately surrendered the former as the latter proved more useful to direct democratic politics.     

Comics and the Demystification of France's Immigration ‘Problem’: Reading Christophe Dabitch's Immigrants

While universalism constitutes the foundation of French republicanism, public discourse and changes in immigration law have revealed that racial and/or ethnic discrimination and exclusion are necessary for cultural assimilation and for the protection of France's ‘universalist’ model. Studies have also shown that at least 40% of the French population is of foreign origin. So how has France justified the reconciliation of universalism and particularism (now referred to as communitarianism) in certain instances but not others? Christophe Dabitch's collaborative comic-book project, Immigrants (2010), aims to deconstruct the French republican narrative of universalism by using a popular medium that is both transcultural and transnational. An effective collage of visual styles, reproduced testimony and scholarship on immigration in France, Dabitch's album proposes writing an alternative French history of immigration and invites readers to question founding mythologies which have erected France as the country of human rights. This article has three objectives: to present Immigrants as a serious historical and artistic project on immigration; to critically examine this publication's purpose (can comics effectively demonstrate that immigration is a common but significant aspect of nation building?); and to explore how comics can positively re-imagine France as a métropole cosmopolite, as an international point of convergence.     

Book Reviews

In early 1971, two Canadian unionists travelled to New Caledonia on a technical mission of assistance to the territory's unions. At the airport in Nouméa, however, the territorial authorities refused the unionists entry. For the French government, the interest of the United Steelworkers of America in New Caledonia represented a threat to the stability and competitiveness of the territory's nickel industry. The visit was also seen as a manifestation of growing American influence on New Caledonia's economic and political development at a time when the French were increasingly concerned about the territory's attachment to France. Yet efforts by the territorial authorities in Nouméa to prevent the visit were complicated by other French and Canadian concerns. Neither Canada nor the metropolitan government of France wanted an international incident that might jeopardise France–Canada relations, which were improving slowly after several years of acrimony.     

Anglophobia and anti-Semitism: The case of Alphonse Toussenel (1803-1885)

Alphonse Toussenel (1803-1885) was a utopian socialist who criticised the economic liberalism of the July Monarchy. He was a follower of Charles Fourier who denounced the ills of civilisation: individualism, egoism and class conflict. However, he was also the founder of modern French anti-Semitism. His writings inspired Edouard Drumont. The present article explores the links between Toussenel's brand of anti-Semitism, rooted in a revolutionary-nationalist reading of French history, and his almost equally aggressive Anglophobia. He described 'Londres-Juda' as an insatiable vampire sucking the lifeblood of France. In Toussenel's hands zoology became a vehicle for social criticism and his natural history books, as much as his political writings, were infused with anti-English sentiments. The English and the Jews represented external and internal threats to French national identity. An examination of Toussenel's writings helps to understand the joint presence of Anglophobia and anti-Semitism within social romanticism.     

Balancing the Constitution: Bicameralism in Post-revolutionary France, 1814–31

After the defeat of Napoleon, representative institutions were introduced in many European states. In France, as in other countries, this new institution was modelled on the English example: a bicameral legislature with an elective and a hereditary chamber. However, the Chamber of Peers failed to live up to its model: it soon became clear that it did not behave as an independent, aristocratic chamber capable of holding the balance between the king and the popular Chamber. Restoration liberals concluded on the basis of this failure that the English political model was simply unsuitable for a levelled society such as that in post-revolutionary France. In 1831, the hereditary Chamber of Peers was abolished. The experience of the French with the Chamber of Peers therefore seems to confirm the idea of a French ‘Sonderweg’ developed by historians such as François Furet and Pierre Rosanvallon. However, it should be noted that even after 1831 the idea of a balance as such did not disappear from French political culture. French publicists suggested that the balanced constitution of the English could be imitated in France in different ways, without necessitating the creation of an aristocratic institution. Thus, the example of the French Chamber of Peers shows that institutional transfers had an important impact on French political culture.

résumé: Après la défaite de Napoléon, des institutions représentatives furent introduites dans beaucoup d'états européens. En France comme dans d'autres pays, la nouvelle institution fut modelée sur le modèle britannique du bicaméralisme avec une chambre élue et une chambre héréditaire. Cependant la chambre des pairs ne réussit pas à imiter son modèle. Il devint rapidement évident qu'elle ne représentait pas une aristocratie indépendante capable de servir de lien entre la chambre et le roi. Les libéraux de la restauration conclurent de cet échec que le modèle britannique ne correspondait pas à une société nivelée comme la France post-révolutionnaire. En 1831 la chambre des pairs hereditaire fut abolie. Cette expérience de la chambre des pairs semble confirmer l'idée d'une exception française telle que François Furet et Pierre Rosanvallon la décrive. Cependant l'idée ne disparut pas et cette notion d'équilibre resta dans le discours politique français. Les publicistes Français suggérèrent qu'une constitution équilibrée puisse être imitée sans une institution aristocratique. Cet exemple montre à quel point les transferts institutionnels eurent un impact dans la culture politique française.     

Parity is about 'race': French republican citizenship and the French Caribbean

This article considers both the racialised and the gendered nature of citizenship in France, combining a reading of the construction of French citizenship and its exclusive nature with a discussion of the implications of the parity debate for other social categories besides gender. A historicised consideration of the French concept of citizenship is followed by a brief account of the place of the French Caribbean and its population in the Republic, emphasising the role played by the republican tradition in the exclusion of both French West Indians and French women. The article argues that gender parity leads to the discussion of other categories of difference, such as 'race', and demonstrates the need for more engaged debate of this issue.     

For the Benefit of All Men: Oceanography and Franco-American Scientific Diplomacy in the Cold War, 1958–1970**

In the 1960s, the growing strategic importance of ocean exploration led the French government to develop greater capacity in marine scientific research, aiming to promote cooperative and diplomatic relations with the leading states in ocean exploration. Devised during Charles de Gaulle's government (1958–1969), the restructuring of French oceanography culminated, in 1967, in the establishment of the state-led Centre National pour l'Exploitation des Océans (CNEXO). Beyond being intended to control the orientation of marine research at a national level, the CNEXO's mission was to use scientific diplomacy to balance a desire for enhancing international cooperative relations in oceanography with French ambitions to equal the USA's leading capacity to explore the oceans. Its director, the naval officer Yves la Prairie, played a crucial role in articulating scientific, national, and diplomatic interests for France in the oceans.     

French radicalism through the eyes of John Stuart Mill

The paper attempts to highlight some under-researched aspects of the interaction between British and French radical political thinkers and activists during the period between the July Revolution of 1830 in France and the early years of the Third Republic. It focuses in particular on the decisive impact that the aftermath of the July Revolution of 1830 had for the perception of French politics by the most Francophile British radical, John Stuart Mill. In this context, Mill's astonishingly dense coverage of French affairs in The Examiner and the relation between that coverage and Mill's radical agenda at home are explored. The Revolution of February 1848 and the establishment of a Republic in France raised new hopes and led to a new round of Anglo-French radical co-operation and manifestations of fraternity. However, it was the frustration of the expectations raised by 1848 (fatally by the time of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d’état in December 1851) that had the most profound effect on the perception of French radicalism outre-Manche. A detailed analysis of which French ‘radical’ parties, factions and personalities attracted Mill's sympathies and support from 1830 to the beginnings of the Third Republic is offered, along with the reasons why Mill was attracted by some of the people and factions in question and not by others. The paper winds up with a few comments on Mill's strenuous efforts to contribute to Anglo-French mutual understanding and fellow-feeling and his strategies to that effect.     

The Political Transfer of English Parliamentary Rules in the French Assemblies (1789–1848)

France has often been perceived as the most resilient country to political transfers from abroad. This view does not withstand close scrutiny and political realities tell a different story. This article argues for a reinterpretation of the role of political transfers in modern French political life (since 1789). Through the study of the introduction of rules inspired by the British parliamentary system, this article seeks to show that transfers did take place and gave rise to controversy. The July Monarchy represents the best example. There was an effective transfer but the resistance to this transfer was also very effective. This resistance shows the structural specificity of the French parliamentary system. Political transfers are thus double edged: it is simultaneously an import into a system and a way of reorganizing the system that modifies the nature of the transfer (in this instance the ‘recipes’ of the British parliament).

Résumé La France a souvent été vue comme le pays du refus de toute importation politique venue de l'étranger. Mais, une telle idée appartient plus au monde des représentations (que les Français ont abondamment nourri) qu'au domaine de la réalité politique. Cet article plaide pour une réévaluation du rôle tenu par les transferts politiques dans la vie politique française moderne (à partir de 1789). A travers l'étude de l'introduction de règles inspirées du modèle parlementaire britannique, l'article tente de démontrer que les transferts ont été à la fois effectifs et sujets à de très fortes controverses. La période de la monarchie de Juillet, de ce point de vue, offre un exemple remarquable. Le transfert eut bien lieu (la publicité des votes principalement) mais la résistance opposée à ce transfert fut elle aussi très efficace. Cette résistance est un révélateur des spécificités structurelles du parlementarisme français. Un transfert politique se révèle donc ici ambivalent: il est à la fois un phénomène d'importation à l'intérieur d'un système d'accueil (ici, la monarchie de Juillet) et une forme de recomposition de ce système qui vient modifier à son tour la nature initiale du transfert (ici, les ‘recettes’ du parlementarisme britannique).     

Crescent concerns

France is home to approximately five million people of Muslim origin, giving it western Europe's largest Muslim population. Three‐quarters of French Muslims trace their origins to just three countries—Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia—but half of today's French Muslim population was born in France. Muslims face considerable difficulties, including poor housing, unemployment and discrimination. Some of these issues are the problems of immigrants in general, not Muslims in particular. But Islam does challenge traditional French notions of citizenship and secularism. However, for all the controversy over headscarves and riots in poor suburbs, there are encouraging signs of a better future for Muslims in France.     

Introduction

In November 2004, France carried out one of the biggest evacuation operations of its expatriates since the Algerian War of 1954–1962. Within a couple of days, more than 8000 French citizens were forced to leave Côte d'Ivoire because of violent anti-French protests by the supporters of the Ivorian regime. This article examines the dispute between French repatriates from Côte d'Ivoire and the French government by analysing the arguments put forward by both sides in legal texts and semi-structured interviews conducted in France and Côte d'Ivoire. It is argued that the dispute cannot be explained satisfactorily as a mere instrumentalisation of the current debates in France about Françafrique. On the contrary, the article shows that Françafrique should be understood primarily as an ideological discourse that organises Franco-African relations and makes them resilient to change.     

The Difficulties of Gender in France: Reflections on a Concept

This article examines the cultural and institutional resistance to the use of gender as a category in French historiography. In France, history, and, more specifically, women's history, has not really assimilated the openings offered by the problematics of the construction of differences, nor the logical consequences of the use of gender. Cultural differences are partly responsible for this, and the polysemic nature of the word genre may add to the confusion. With a few exceptions, women's history in France is reluctant to engage in a historical analysis which would take into account the founding role of hierarchy and of relations of power and difference which are central to gender.     

American Girls and French Jeunes Filles: Negotiating National Identities in Interwar France

This essay is a transnational and comparative study of how gendered national stereotypes structured the experience of American women who studied in France in the 1920s and 1930s and how this cross‐cultural exchange contributed to cultural internationalism. In both the French and American popular imaginations, American girls and French jeunes filles connoted opposite modern and traditional notions of femininity. In the process of negotiating these two competing identities in popular consciousness and in daily life, some American women students came to appreciate the limitations of the stereotypes, as well as more complex underlying cultural differences, notably in their encounters with French youth's heterosocial practices and with French women students. I argue that the outcome of this process included women's construction of alternative identities for themselves and a new tolerance and appreciation for cultural difference that represents a distinctive development toward cultural internationalism. This study challenges the cultural asymmetry of United States and European relations between the wars and locates gender and women at their centre.